Saturday, January 9, 2010

DV9000 Freeze and Shut Off Issue

DV9000 arrived seemingly working well until touched. Upon inspection I noticed that when I would use the right palmrest the unit would shut off unexpectedly. Rebooting, I tapped the area mentioned above. Again it shut off. Reboot this time not touching the unit other than the power button. The Vista OS would load, but hang before completing start up.

Disassemble the laptop and visually inspect for short or open connections. During the removal of the hard drive I noticed that SATA1 connector was damaged. This would definitely cause the freeze during boot. Upon further inspection I notice that USB1 was damaged. Pushed in and the pin 2 & 3 were touching the outer portion of the connector that is negative ground. This would cause the shut down.

Completely remove the motherboard and replace the USB and SATA1 connector. Not as easy as it seems because the small area to heat and desolder pins. I typically use a magnifying headband and plenty of light. With insufficient lighting many mistakes can happen, or be missed and/or cause further permanent damage.

*The DV9000 comes with 2 SATA connectors as opposed to the DV6000 or Compaq V6000, F700 which only has one connector.

After replacing the USB and SATA connectors, fired up the unit and all appeared to be working normally. The unit runs for 2 hours, turn on WIFI to connect to net and LCD goes milk white. No Video Data to LCD. This will require opening the bezel & lid to see if LCD is connected, or motherboard connector has failed. Should not be an issue but need to be resolved.

About Me

Hoosier Newman is known as the Laptop Doctor in Charlotte. More of a hobby that got out of hand than a business. Since I am thoroughly familiar with computers it is a deviation from the ordinary. See my profile in my blog for additional notes ...